A new springtime? →

In a radio broadcast in 1969, Father Joseph Ratzinger famously declared that “from the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge — a Church that has lost much. She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning.”

The future Cardinal Ratzinger obviously did not have the COVID-19 pandemic in mind when he wrote these words. In fact, he was discussing what he thought the Catholic Church would look like in the year 2000 — 31 years later, and five years before he would take the name Pope Benedict XVI.

Yet here in 2020, his words seem prophetic, in the original sense of the term.

Conspiracy theories →

Conspiracies exist; this I know, for the Bible tells me so.

Tomorrow, the Wednesday of Holy Week, has traditionally been known as Spy Wednesday. Unlike Maundy Thursday or Good Friday, the adjective here requires no explanation. Judas was the spy, and it was on this day that he steeled himself to hand Jesus over to the chief priests and elders.

In the end, the conspiracy that Judas set in motion both succeeded in its aim — Jesus was tried, sentenced to death and crucified — and failed, not only because Christ rose from the grave on Easter Sunday but because Judas cracked under pressure.

We are an Easter people →

Growing up in Michigan, just a mile or so inland from the shore of Lake Michigan, Easter, even when it came early, was always heralded by signs of spring. Here in Huntington, Indiana, on the Monday of Holy Week in April 2020, the crocuses have come and (mostly) gone, the grape hyacinths are up, and the daffodils are in full bloom.

But what I really look forward to seeing are the forsythia.

How the story ends →

With its mix of joy and sorrow, celebration of Christ’s kingship and anticipation of his death, Palm Sunday has always been a bittersweet start to Holy Week, but never more so than this year. The images of priests and bishops celebrating Mass in empty churches, reading St. Matthew’s Passion with only one person responding as the crowd, drove home the unusual nature of what we will experience over the coming week.

The responsorial psalm for today — Psalm 22 — foreshadows Christ’s passion, especially those final moments on the cross before he delivers up his spirit. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”